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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2011‒07‒02
four papers chosen by Laura Stefanescu European Research Centre of Managerial Studies in Business Administration |
| By: | Emanuela Marrocu; Raffaele Paci; Stefano Usai |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at assessing the role of various dimension of proximity on the innovative capacity of a region within the context of a knowledge production function where we consider as main internal inputs R&D expenditures and human capital. We want to assess if, and how much, the creation of new ideas in a certain region is the result of flows of information and knowledge coming from proximate regions. In particular, we examine in details the concept of proximity combining the usual geographical dimension with the institutional, the technological, the social and the organizational proximity. The analysis is implemented for an ample dataset referring to 287 regions in 29 countries (EU27 plus Norway, Switzerland) for the last decade. Results show that human capital and R&D are clearly essential for innovative activity but with an impact which is much higher for the former factor. As for the proximity and network effects, we find that geography is important but less than technological and cognitive proximity. Social and organizational networks are also relevant but their role is more modest. Finally, most of these proximities prove to have a complementary role in shaping innovative activity across regions in Europe. |
| Keywords: | knowledge production; technological spillover; proximity; networks |
| JEL: | O31 C31 O18 R12 O52 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201109&r=knm |
| By: | Alessandra Colombelli; Marta Foddi; Raffaele Paci |
| Abstract: | Since the Lisbon agenda in 2000, Europe stated the goal to become the most advanced knowledge economy in the world relying specifically on the increase and strengthen of its human capital and technological endowments. However, given the presence of localized externalities in the knowledge accumulation process, this policy may produce distortive and unwanted consequences at the territorial level reinforcing the existing high inequalities among regions. Another crucial feature to be considered is the recent enlargement process of the European Union which has brought on stage new players characterized by a low average level of knowledge activity accompanied by a huge degree of internal territorial disparity. The aim of this paper is to identify the “knowledge regions” in Europe and to examine their main territorial features. To this aim we first build, for 287 regions belonging to 31 European countries, a comprehensive picture of the two variables - human capital and technological activity - which constitute the main pillars of the knowledge economy. We compute two synthetic indicators for human capital and technology and, on the basis of these two dimensions, we identify 74 knowledge regions, mainly located in the centre and north of Europe. This results are confirmed by a cluster analysis. |
| Keywords: | knowledge; human capital; technological activity; regions; Europe |
| JEL: | R11 J24 O30 O52 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201110&r=knm |
| By: | Hottenrott, Hanna; Peters, Bettina |
| Abstract: | This study presents a novel empirical approach to identify financing constraints for innovation based on the concept of an ideal test as suggested by Hall (2008). Firms were offered a hypothetical payment and were asked to choose between alternatives of use. If they selected additional innovation projects, they must have had some unexploited investment opportunities that were not profitable using more costly external finance. We attribute constraints for innovation not only to lacking financing, but also to firms' innovative capability. Econometric results show that financial constraints do not depend on the availability of internal funds per se, but that they are driven by innovative capability. -- |
| Keywords: | Innovation,financing constraints,innovative capability,multivariate probit models |
| JEL: | O31 O32 C35 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:09081r&r=knm |
| By: | Kashefi, Mohammad Ali |
| Abstract: | In this paper a game theoretic model is employed to analyze the relationship between strategic location decision of firms in the supply chain considering the role of horizontal and vertical knowledge spillovers, and numerical approach is applied to characterize the equilibria of the considered multi-stage game. Geographical concentration or isolation as equilibrium outcome is determined based on our different parameterizations and two scenarios each consists of two separated cases, which we establish according to the location of our agents. In the first scenario both suppliers are supposed to be located in different regions while in the second one they act in a same region. In addition, first case of each scenario considers geographical isolation of two producers whereas second case investigates the geographical concentration. Furthermore, the effect of different technological level of our agents on their final location decision is investigated. |
| Keywords: | Strategic Firm Location; Knowledge Spillover; Geographical Concentration; Supply Chain |
| JEL: | R30 L13 C88 C61 D83 C72 |
| Date: | 2011–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:31743&r=knm |